10 things San Jose says residents should keep out of recycling bins

Ten items are frequently being thrown into the wrong bins in San Jose, prompting city officials to release a list targeting the city’s worst recycling offenders.

The items were identified during a citywide sampling of roughly 17,000 single-family recycling carts conducted between January and April. Workers discovered a total of 20,000 incorrectly recycled items across the city, with plastic wrap and film plastic alone accounting for nearly 31% of the total banned items.

The city says these misplaced items lead to increased costs for San Jose’s recycling contractors to “properly sort and dispose of these items.”

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“The City of San José compensates recycling contractors based on levels of contamination found in the recycling carts: the more contamination, the higher the payment to the contractor,” the city said in a press release. “Those additional costs are paid for by single-family ratepayers.”

The city’s top ten recycling contaminants include:

– Plastic wrap, including case wrap and plastic film used for items like bread bags, paper towel wrapping, sandwich bags, and water bottle packs.
– Non-recyclable paper, which includes tissues, napkins, metallic gift wrap, and food-stained paper like greasy pizza boxes or to-go containers.
– Garbage and recyclables bound inside plastic bags.
– Plastic packaging, including bubble wrap, air pillows, blister packs, and plastic or padded shipping envelopes.
– Plastic to-go bags, such as standard grocery and retail sacks.
– Expanded polystyrene such as Styrofoam products, including packaging peanuts, blocks, cups, plates, and to-go containers.
– Textiles, including clothing, bedding, shoes, rugs, and fiber tote bags.
– Snack wrappers, chip bags and wrappers featuring a foil or reflective interior.
– To-go coffee cups, hot or cold paper cups, lids, and water cooler cups.
– Food scraps and household trash items like hoses, diapers, clothes hangers, and toys.

A list of acceptable items is available at sanjoserecycles.org. It includes materials such as plastic egg cartons, plastic water bottles, rigid plastic cups, and food storage containers.

While city officials emphasized the need to keep improving recycling habits, they said recent progress has already led to significant taxpayer savings.

According to a 2024 study, San Jose’s recycling contamination rate fell to 41% from 57% in 2022. City officials said the drop reduces contractor compensation by $6.5 million each year from 2025 through 2027.

“This decrease in contamination of our recycling showed that residents value and are engaged with recycling the correct way,” said City Manager Jennifer Maguire. “We look forward to the next study scheduled for this fall, which will establish the updated contamination rate and contractor compensation for the next two fiscal years.”

City officials say they know that recycling guidelines can be confusing and credited the recent improvements to several outreach initiatives. Among them is the city’s cart tagging program, which involves checking bins on collection days to provide residents with direct feedback on their sorting habits. San Jose has also placed English, Spanish and Vietnamese instructional graphics on more than 117,000 recycling cart lids and expanded outreach to multifamily properties.

The city participates in a countywide hazardous waste program. The service allows residents to drop off items that cannot go into standard bins – such as batteries, paint, household cleaners, and propane tanks – at no additional cost. Drop-offs are accepted at two permanent facilities in San Jose and San Martin, as well as more than 500 neighborhood locations throughout the county.

For more information, visit sanjoserecycles.org.